


This is Real (So Take a Chance)

by flyingcarpet



Category: Glee
Genre: Actor Kurt, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Broadway, M/M, Teacher Blaine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-08
Updated: 2011-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:13:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingcarpet/pseuds/flyingcarpet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Returning home to Lima, Broadway star Kurt Hummel never expected to meet someone special. (or, an AU where Kurt is a Broadway star and Blaine is a small town elementary school teacher and they never dated in high school.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Real (So Take a Chance)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the klaine_endgame fest on lj. Thanks to silveronthetree, spazzula & margotheangel for beta-reading. Title is from "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the voice of the pilot announced over the loudspeaker, "we are now beginning our descent into the Columbus area. Please make sure your tray tables are in their upright position and your seat belts are securely fastened." Kurt turned off his tablet and slipped it into his bag, and watched out the window as the ground grew closer and closer.

Beyond the clouds, farms and fields gave way to suburbs and city sprawl. Soon enough he'd be there, driving through all those places that he hadn't seen in years, traveling slowly over the terrain he had been so happy to leave behind.

He'd been eighteen when he left Ohio, headed for New York and all it had to offer, and he'd never looked back. Since that time, he'd accomplished nearly everything he'd set out to do. He'd had his name in lights and heard a crowd chanting his name, won three Tony Awards and read about himself on Page Six more times than he could count. He was a star now.

Kurt knew that he would always return to Lima because his father lived there, and Finn and Carole, and now his niece. But it could never hold a candle to the frantic pace of New York, the crowds, the towering buildings and the bright lights.

"Have a good trip, Mr. Hummel," the flirty flight attendant said, slipping him a napkin with a wink.

"I will," Kurt said, winking back and tucking the phone number into his carry-on for safekeeping. The trip probably wouldn't be half as exciting as _Troy 212-555-5309_ thought -- after all it was Lima. Kurt was going to rest up and spend some low-key time with his family. In just two weeks, the role of a lifetime would be waiting for him on Broadway.

Lima would always be his hometown, but New York City was his home. He hadn't even gotten off the plane and already he felt eager to get back.

\------

"Kurt!"

"Hi, Finn," Kurt said with a smile, setting his suitcase down on the floor of his old bedroom and transferring his phone from one hand to the other.

"Kurt, man, I know you just got into town and all, but I'm stuck at the shop and--"

"What do you need?" Kurt asked, already grabbing his dad's spare set of keys out of the bowl in the hallway.

"Pick Chloe up from school? I'm incredibly late already but we just got a transmission overhaul in here and we're swamped--"

"Say no more, Finn. I'll take care of it." Kurt knew how the shop got when they were busy, and how irritated customers would get if they saw one of their mechanics leaving when they were waiting. Besides, he was on vacation. Of course he could spare twenty minutes out of his day to pick up his niece.

By the time that Kurt found the car seat and pulled the Navigator up to Warren G. Harding Elementary School, the regular afternoon rush of cars had come and gone. The parking lot was nearly deserted, and the playground was empty. A small blonde girl sat on the front steps of the school next to a dark-haired man about Kurt's age, watching the street. When Kurt stopped at the curb, she sat up straight but did not move from the steps, so Kurt parked the car and got out.

"Uncle Kurt," Chloe said seriously as Kurt approached the school. "Where's my daddy?"

The man beside her looked up and caught Kurt's eye, and suddenly Kurt felt like a teenager again, casting dreamy-eyed gazes at Sam Evans in the middle of glee club rehearsal. But unlike Sam, this guy was giving Kurt a long look that set off his gaydar in about a dozen different ways. He was absolutely gorgeous, with dark curly hair and shirtsleeves rolled up to expose softly muscled forearms.

"Is something wrong?" Chloe asked, and her concern broke through Kurt's daze. He crouched down to speak to her eye-to-eye.

"Nothing's wrong, your dad just got caught up at the shop with a transmission repair," he said. "So he asked me to pick you up from school, okay?" He glanced over at the guy sitting next to her. "I really am her uncle," he said. "Is it all right if I--"

"Her dad called ahead," he said, in a quiet voice.

Chloe looked doubtful for a moment, but finally relented. "I guess," she said, shrugging her small shoulders and turning toward the Navigator.

Kurt glanced back at the man still sitting on the school steps, watching them. He knew that he was only in town for two weeks and it was a bad time to meet someone, but it couldn't hurt to have a little fun while he was stuck in Lima, could it? Besides, this guy was much too gorgeous to ignore.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" he asked Chloe.

"He's not my friend, he's my teacher," she corrected firmly.

At that, Chloe's teacher stood up and extended his hand toward Kurt. "Blaine Anderson," he said, with a twinkle in his eye that absolutely should not have been as sexy as it was. "But the kids call me Mr. A."

"Kurt Hummel," Kurt said, clasping Blaine's warm, dry hand in his, feeling a charge go up his arm at the touch.

"I call him Uncle Kurt," Chloe interrupted.

"Good to meet you, Uncle Kurt," Blaine said, grinning.

Chloe slipped her small hand into Kurt's and tugged on his arm. He glanced down at her, and then back up to Blaine.

If Kurt saw a guy this cute at a club, he wouldn't hesitate. By the time he got a drink or danced to his favorite song, he might've missed his chance. An elementary school in Lima was hardly comparable to New York's finest dance floors, but he didn't waste time here, either.

"I have to get her home," Kurt said. "But thank you for sitting with her." He watched Blaine's expression closely, taking stock of the exact degree of disappointment that crossed his face. It was enough that Kurt knew without a shadow of a doubt that he'd read the situation just right. "But maybe you'd like to have a drink with me later?"

Blaine met Kurt's eyes and held the gaze for a long moment. "I'd love to," he said. "Tonight, at the Lima Bean?"

"Uh, sure." Coffee wasn't quite what he'd had in mind. Still, a date was a date. "I'll see you there," Kurt said, before allowing Chloe to drag him away by the hand.

\-----

"Uncle Kurt has a date," Chloe announced, about thirty seconds after entering Hummel & Hudson Tires & Lube.

"Yeah?" Burt asked, sliding out from underneath an old Kia sedan. "Who with?"

"My teacher, Mr. A."

"That was fast," Finn said, stepping out of the office with a broad grin on his face.

Kurt resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. "Your daughter is a terrible wingman," he muttered.

"Got the date, didn't you?" Finn asked, sounding genuinely insulted by this crack, as if his genes were at fault. Which might have explained some things. "He's a pretty attractive guy, too. I mean, if you're into that. Guys."

"I thought you were only here for a couple weeks, kid," Burt said. It was difficult to see his expression clearly when he was lying on his back, half underneath a car, but Kurt had a lot of practice and he could tell that his father was frowning up at him.

"You know that's right," he said, frowning back.

"Just be careful with him." Burt's voice sounded stern, and he didn't wait for a response before rolling back under the car.

Kurt turned to Finn and raised an eyebrow in a silent question. "Mr. A changes his own oil," Finn said, shrugging. "Your dad really likes him."

\-----

Kurt pulled up outside the Lima Bean and glanced in the rearview mirror to check his hair, which was perfect. He looked across the parking lot to the coffee shop, which was significantly less so.

When he'd asked Blaine out for a drink, he thought he'd been pretty specific. A drink meant one single alcoholic cocktail, consumed in a dimly-lit establishment loud enough for private conversation, with the possibility of an extension into two or three drinks. It was a good first date, and an even better prelude to a one-night stand.

A second date was reasonably rare; it seemed like too much trouble when every club in Manhattan was brimming with guys who'd love to take a Broadway star home for the night, or suck him off in the back room. Still, Kurt had a system for a second date, too -- a darkened restaurant with a secluded table and a good selection of organic meal options, where the maitre d' would make just enough of a fuss over his celebrity to impress, but not enough to disturb.

He normally didn't go out on a third date unless there was some kind of publicity boost, or the guy gave great head.

So what was he doing walking into a coffee shop in Lima, Ohio? Coffee wasn't in the plan. Nobody would be seduced over coffee. No tabloids would photograph them. He couldn't bring anyone back to his dad's house anyway. The entire evening was just an exercise in futility.

Without exactly knowing why, Kurt went in anyway. He scanned the tables for Blaine's dark curly hair, but he wasn't there.

"Can I get something started for ya?" the girl behind the counter asked, startling Kurt a little. A pair of blonde braids framed her pale face, and her nametag said _Amy_.

"Grande skim mocha, please," he said, not really thinking about it. He'd come to this place a lot his senior year, when he'd dated a junior in Aural Intensity for a few months. Mostly they just fooled around in the Navigator's expansive backseat and tried to steal the opposing glee club's secrets, but there had been some coffee dates in between, too. Lance was a good guy but he was more like a friend with benefits than a romance for the ages.

"Wait, I know you," she said, looking at him curiously over the top of the espresso machine. "You're Kurt Hummel."

"That's right," Kurt said, smiling in the practiced way he used for interacting with fans. He was recognized often enough by theater fans in New York City, but it had never happened before in Lima. Although he hadn't been back in a couple of years, not since landing the starring role in _Amazing!_ and winning all those Tony Awards.

"Mister Schue made us all sing songs from _Amazing!_ last semester in glee club," she said, and Kurt felt a genuine smile stretching across his face at the thought. He could just picture a bunch of ragtag kids in homemade costumes belting out those songs in the McKinley auditorium.

"Which one was yours?" he asked her, curious despite himself. He wondered if she was a young diva like Mercedes or Rachel, a torch singer like Santana, or a sweet-voiced ingenue like Quinn.

Amy's smile dimmed for a moment. "I did a duet on 'Not Anymore,'" she said, and Kurt didn't press the issue. "But we sang 'This is the Place' at Sectionals and came in first -- it was awesome."

A moment later, she had pulled a copy of the original soundtrack album out of her backpack and Kurt was signing it for her, telling her how they'd recorded it at this rundown building in Queens before the show even opened, none of them knowing if it'd ever be released.

"Oh, hi Mr. A," she said, a minute later. "Look, it's Kurt Hummel!"

Kurt turned and met Blaine's eyes, twinkling again and very nearly irresistible. "So it is," Blaine murmured, as she turned away to get their coffees.

He reached out and picked up the album that Kurt had just signed, and flipped the case shut. On the cover there was a close-up of Kurt's face, gazing soulfully off into the distance, with some of the stage sets and the other actors in the background. It was the same picture that had been on the posters that hung thirty feet tall in Times Square, the enormous planes of his face twisting and snapping in the city breezes.

"It doesn't really do you justice," Blaine said, and Kurt felt a shiver run down his spine at the rough edge of his voice as he spoke.

"Here you go," said the barista, smiling. "One skim mocha and one medium drip, on the house."

"But, I--" Kurt began to protest, but she pulled the album cover out of Blaine's hand and held it up, as if to say that the autograph was payment for the drinks. Blaine picked up both coffees and led the way to a table in the corner, and Kurt thanked her quickly before following.

"Do you know everyone in this town?" Kurt asked, feeling oddly embarrassed about being caught giving an autograph to the barista. Ordinarily he would've loved impressing his date this way, but it felt out of place and uncomfortable here, where he was surrounded by his high school memories.

Blaine smiled. "Sometimes I help Schuester with New Directions, and in return he helps me with the elementary school choir."

"You sing, then?" Kurt asked, as he settled into his chair. He wondered absently if he'd managed to ask out the only Broadway groupie in Western Ohio.

"Just for fun," Blaine said, shrugging and looking down at the table, so that his eyelashes formed a dark crescent against his cheek. "I used to sing at Six Flags and Kings Island in the summers, but it's mostly just the teaching, now."

"Do you miss it?" Kurt asked, cupping his warm drink in both hands and leaning forward. As much as he enjoyed the perks and the fame, it was getting up onstage that he loved, the glare of the spotlights and the energy of the audience and the feel of a song on his lips. Even if an amusement park was a much smaller stage, Blaine had experienced all that and then somehow chose to give it up.

"Not really," Blaine said, although his face told a different story. The regretful look faded as he smiled and said, "What I really love is working with the kids, teaching them to sing, helping them discover how talented they really are. At that age, most of them have no idea what they can do."

Kurt watched him talk, face bright with enthusiasm, and couldn't help but smile himself. "They're lucky to have you," he said, and he wasn't just thinking of the elementary school kids.

Blaine shifted in his chair and when he looked up, his face was very close, and Kurt had to admit that he might've misjudged the potential of a coffee date.

\-----

"Well, this is me," Blaine said, as the car pulled up outside a plain townhome not far from the elementary school. "Thanks for the ride."

"You're welcome," Kurt said, as he shifted into park and waited for Blaine to invite him in for a nightcap or to see his etchings or anything that really meant sex.

After a moment of silence, Blaine spoke again. "I had a really good time tonight," he said.

 _Oh, hell_ , Kurt thought, mentally revising the situation. Blaine wasn't going to invite him in, he wanted to say goodbye in the car. It felt like a ridiculous cliche, like a hundred teenage movies filled with tentative kisses and longing looks. He'd thought he was past all that.

"We should do this again," Blaine said. Kurt looked over at him, his profile illuminated in the yellow glow of the streetlight. He was smiling slightly, the graceful curve of his lower lip tilted up at the corner.

A second date was not in Kurt's plan. He'd intended this date to be a distraction, to entertain him while he was stuck in Lima. He was going to buy Blaine a drink or two, then roll him in some kind of chocolate sauce and lick him all over until he begged for more.

But in the absence of Plan A, Kurt was surprised to realize that a second date wouldn't be so bad, either. He'd actually had a good time tonight. Blaine was incredibly easy to talk to, thoughtful and intelligent and knowledgeable about the theater and fashion without being a drooling fanboy or a slave to someone else's opinions. Plus, he was incredibly attractive.

"I'd love to," Kurt said. There was really no question at all.

Blaine's hesitant smile bloomed suddenly into a broad grin, and he pulled his hand away from the door handle. With a jolt, Kurt realized that the expression on his face was surprise. Blaine hadn't been expecting Kurt to agree, or to want to see him again. Somewhere along the line, Kurt had gotten so used to men throwing themselves at him that he'd almost forgotten how to make the first move.

Cursing himself for hesitating even this long, Kurt set the Navigator's emergency brake and leaned across the gap to the passenger seat. He cupped the back of Blaine's head with one hand and pulled him closer, angling his head so he could press his lips to Blaine's, softly at first. He pulled away slowly, giving Blaine a chance to stop, but Blaine leaned into it instead, followed him into another kiss before parting his lips and opening himself up to Kurt and then it was moist lips and tongues and Blaine's hand resting on Kurt's knee.

Blaine pulled back eventually, face flushed and breath ragged. "I should -- go," he said, reaching behind him for the door handle without looking. "Good night." And then he was gone.

Kurt could feel his pulse pounding in his temples and his hips, and he rested his head on the steering wheel as he tried to regulate his breathing. He could still taste Blaine on his tongue.

"Good night," he said out loud to the empty car. "So... dinner?"

\-----

As soon as he could focus on driving again. Kurt drove slowly down familiar darkened streets to his dad's house, pulled into the driveway and sat looking at the pool of yellow light centered on the porch. His lips were tingling and his heart was racing and all he could think about was the curve of Blaine's jaw line and the way his voice sounded when he said _it doesn't do you justice_.

He went inside and climbed the stairs to his old room, still furnished the way he'd left it, although he hadn't lived there since before Chloe was born. It was as if no time had passed at all since high school, as if all the years and the miles and the dreams between then and now had just disappeared. But the way he felt, giddy and hopeful and overwhelmed, stupid with stars in his eyes... it was something that was more true to a John Hughes movie than to the high school life that Kurt had actually lived.

He reached for his phone, and clicked on the name at the top of the list. She picked up on the first ring. "Hey, Boo."

Kurt reclined back against the pillows on his bed. How many times had he sat here and had this conversation with her? So many that it was something he didn't even need to think about anymore. "I met a guy."

"Just one?" She laughed.

"Mercedes!" He pretended to be shocked, but he wasn't really. "Are you calling me a slut?" She wouldn't have been the first one to say it. Kurt couldn't feel bad about it, anyway -- he was living the life he'd always dreamed of, taking advantage of what the city had to offer. And it wasn't as if he had no standards.

"I'm saying you're too popular for your own good, sweetie. But tell me about this one."

"I went to pick Chloe up from school--"

"Wait, you're in Lima? You are! How did you meet a guy there? I thought it was a gay wasteland."

That was what Kurt had always said in high school, where the only other gay kids were either permanently closeted or Santana. Neither of those was exactly an option. Eventually he'd met Lance, who'd relieved him of his virginity and made him feel a little less alone, but it hadn't been much more than that.

"Apparently not a complete wasteland," Kurt said. "Statistically speaking, it had to happen eventually."

"Statistically speaking, you'd meet Mr. Ryerson," Mercedes said. "You know all those statistical gay boys move away to New York the first chance they get."

"This one didn't," Kurt said, thinking of the expression of pleased surprise on Blaine's face when Kurt had said he'd like to go out again. Growing up in the gay wasteland had been bad enough; what must it be like to stay there?

"All right, boy. Dish." Kurt knew his best friend, and he knew that wasn't a request. He snuggled back into the pillows, pressed the phone to his ear, and proceeded to tell her everything.

By the time he finished talking, Kurt's sense of deja vu had only increased. Driving his old car through his old hometown, sitting up in his old bedroom and talking to his best friend since high school about a guy... it all felt oddly familiar. There was only one problem: it really, really wasn't.

"Mercedes, I have no idea what I'm doing," he confessed. "Seriously, I've never--"

"Never what?" she asked. "Your social life is more active than Rachel Berry on speed. You go out with guys by the dozen." Okay, she was right. She was always right. She was Mercedes. He was just grateful she'd said _dozen_ and not _hundred_.

"I think..." he said slowly, "I think that's the problem." And it was. He met guys at clubs, at bars, at the stage door after his shows, and there were always more where they came from. He would go out with them once or twice, wine them and dine them and fuck them and never call them again. And that had been the plan with Blaine, too. At first.

"Those boys in New York, they know what they're getting into with you," Mercedes said. "But this one is different."

"Yeah," Kurt said. "He is." Something had changed tonight, between the coffee and the time that Kurt drove away feeling giddy as a schoolgirl. Blaine had torn Kurt's standard plan to shreds, and he found that he didn't even mind. There was something different about Blaine, an excitement that he'd never felt before.

"I've never really tried to date just one," he told Mercedes, and felt his stomach drop as the giddy excitement he'd been feeling all night fell away. Was that really what he was doing?

"Are you sure that's what you want?" she asked gently. "You're not just dating one guy because there's no one else there?"

Kurt thought about it objectively: he tried to call up the face of the flirty flight attendant or imagine driving to a gay club in Columbus. It just felt _wrong_.

"I think..." he said slowly. "I think it is what I want."

When he hung up the phone, he felt more grounded in reality and less adrift in deja vu. Unfortunately, he was no more clear on what his next step with Blaine should be. That was new, too: with the club guys and theater fanboys, Kurt always knew what to do. Now, for the first time in a long time -- possibly ever -- he was at a loss.

\-----

When Kurt woke the next morning, he still had no idea what should come next with Blaine. But a long night's sleep had cleared up something else for him -- there was at least one other person that he wanted to see while he was in Lima. He made some phone calls after breakfast, then dressed as casually as he could in skinny jeans and a striped henley, topped off with a scarf, hat and fabulous boots.

At two-fifteen in the afternoon, he walked into McKinley High School, signed in as a visitor in the office, and made his way to the choir room. The school looked much the same, as if it hadn't been painted in the last twelve years, as if the same banners and trophies and letterman jackets from the class of 2012 had simply been recycled for new owners. But the teachers looked strangely less ancient and ridiculous to his adult eyes, and the students he passed in the hallway seemed almost impossibly young.

"Kurt!" Mr. Schuester said, sounding genuinely excited to see him. Schue was a little older, graying around the temples, and one whole wall of his office was taken up with a trophy case, nearly filled to bursting. "Tell me all about Broadway," he said, clasping his hands on top of the desk in a gesture that was so familiar it was a little bit frightening.

So Kurt sat down and told him about auditioning for _Amazing!_ and the grueling dance rehearsals and what it had been like to record the soundtrack.

"I read that the show is touring soon," Schue said. "Any chance the show will come to Columbus?"

"Yes and no," Kurt said. "The show is, but I won't be with them." Schue nodded, and started to ask another question, but Kurt interrupted him. "Actually, I'm not supposed to say anything, but -- I'm starting rehearsals for the revival of _Cabaret_ in a few weeks."

For all his mistakes and his frequent misguided rules, Kurt knew that Mr. Schuester had always been the one teacher who cared about the glee club more than anything, probably more than he should have. And Kurt knew he would appreciate this.

"Kurt, that's fantastic! Really wonderful." There weren't a lot of people in Lima who would understand exactly _how_ fantastic that was, but Mr. Schue was one of them. "You'll be playing the Master of Ceremonies?"

"It's a dream role," Kurt confessed. When it seemed like there was nothing in this town that he could connect to, performing this role had been the fantasy that kept him going. And now it was going to be real. He would be on Broadway performing the gender-neutral, sexually-ambiguous, envelope-pushing role of a lifetime in a classic show, before his thirtieth birthday.

"I'm so proud of you," he said, and Kurt felt a prickling in his eyes, a little surprised at the force that simple statement exerted over him. "You were always bound for bigger things than Lima had to offer."

Kurt thought back to all the times he'd been frustrated with Schuester's rules and struggled against his short-sightedness. It had never been perfect, but somehow, his time here had prepared him for a life in the theater more than he ever imagined at the time. "You're thinking of the Victor/Victoria duet, aren't you?"

Schuester grinned. "I was blown away. We all were. Those costumes! The other kids couldn't come close."

"I don't think I slept for a week, I spent so much time sewing," Kurt said. Even remembering back now, it was all a bit blurry. "Do you still make your glee club kids do those competitions?"

"Yes, but I try to stack the deck a bit to make sure the same kids don't win every time," Schuester said, sounding a little apologetic. "Bring in guest judges and things like that."

"Oh, yeah?" Kurt asked, trying to sound casual. "Guest judges?"

"Quinn's come back from Columbus and helped out a couple times," Schuester said, seemingly unaware of Kurt's subtle questioning. "April Rhodes comes through town now and then. And I usually have Mr. A from the elementary school." It was almost too easy; all Kurt had to do was raise one eyebrow to get him to elaborate.

"Blaine Anderson, he runs the elementary school choir. A local kid, actually, though he went to private school in Westerville, so you wouldn't have met him when you were here. The kids love him, really. And it's nice for some of them to have... an outside perspective. I know it might've helped you, when you were here." He paused for a moment, and Kurt could almost see the wheels turning beneath his overly-gelled hair. "Actually, if you're not seeing anyone, I think you two would get along. I could introduce you?"

Kurt brushed off the suggestion. "I'm only in town for a couple of weeks, but thanks for the offer," he said. If Blaine heard he'd been asking around about him, he'd probably think Kurt was some kind of stalker. And the thought of being fixed up on a date by Mr. Schuester was a little too strange to contemplate, in any case.

Schuester just shrugged. "How about guest judging for me next week, then?" he asked. "I'll give the kids time to whip up something special for you."

It was an offer that Kurt couldn't refuse.

On the way back to the parking lot, he took a detour and walked past his old locker, not really sure why he was doing it. School was letting out, and the halls were filled with kids laughing and talking with one another. They were wrapped in letterman's jackets and crisp Cheerios uniforms, carrying books and basketballs and cell phones, and it was so familiar that Kurt almost expected Karofsky to turn the corner in front of him with an enormous grape slushie.

He was halfway down the front steps of the school when he saw them, and surprise stopped him in his tracks. Two boys, walking with their heads together in intimate conversation and their hands linked. The taller of the two was wearing a letterman's jacket with a lacrosse stick embroidered beneath his name, and the shorter one was slim and straight in a vintage velvet blazer. And the students of McKinley swarmed around them, headed out to their cars or back in to the school for extracurriculars, and did not even look twice except to exchange a friendly wave or two.

Kurt stood on the steps, gripping the railing tight in one hand, and watched the boys until they reached the parking lot. They exchanged a quick kiss, got into their separate cars and drove out of the parking lot, and he was still standing there trying to breathe.

\-----

He called Blaine that evening.

"I'm glad you called," Blaine said, sounding open and pleased in a way that seemed strange and foreign to Kurt. Most of the people he knew in New York seemed perennially bored, or at least tried to act that way.

"I stopped by McKinley today and talked to Mr. Schuester," Kurt told him, absentmindedly drumming his fingers on the desk as he spoke. He knew he had to be honest with Blaine about the meeting or he'd find out some other way. Lima was a small enough town that gossip spread like wildfire. "He offered to fix us up on a blind date."

"You and me?" Blaine repeated, sounding amused. "Is that why he called and asked me to guest judge a sing-off next week?"

Kurt rolled his eyes and smiled to himself. "I told him I wasn't interested, but he asked me the same thing, so he must be doing it."

"Oh." Blaine was quiet for a long moment, and when he spoke again his voice was strained. "So..."

Kurt played his comment over in his head, and felt like the biggest idiot imaginable. Spending time with Finn again was making him into a bumbling fool in the romance department. Here he had finally met a guy he liked and what did he do? He called him on the phone and told him the opposite. "I mean, I told him that I didn't need to be fixed up," Kurt rushed to say. "But I guess he's planning to introduce us anyway."

Blaine laughed, but there was some tension there that hadn't been there before. "We're probably the only gay men he knows," he said, "of course he wants to introduce us."

Once again, Kurt was forcibly reminded that Blaine's life in Lima must be the polar opposite of his own existence in New York, where half his coworkers and two-thirds of his neighbors were gay. "I thought we got along all right," he said, feeling unaccountably nervous. "Maybe Schuester knows what he's talking about."

"Anything's possible," Blaine said dryly. It was very nearly the same comment that Kurt's seventeen-year-old self would have made about Schuester, and it startled him into laughter.

"Can I take you to dinner tomorrow?" Kurt asked, not bothering to segue into it at all. He already knew that Blaine was different, and for that he deserved a different approach. Kurt owed him honesty, not the smooth, practiced lines he'd used on half the guys in Manhattan.

"Tomorrow?" Blaine repeated, and for a moment Kurt thought he was going to make some excuse. Kurt knew they'd been out the night before, he knew they'd only just met, he knew he was coming on strong and making no effort to pretend otherwise.

He didn't have any time to waste. Rehearsals for _Cabaret_ started in New York in less than three weeks, and Kurt would be there. Until then, he wanted to spend as much time as he could with Blaine.

\-----

Kurt adjusted his tie, straightened his shoulders, and pulled open the door of the restaurant. Inside, it was the opposite of his usual second-date place: bright sunflower-yellow walls and a lot of heavy dark wood to contrast, with an enormous bar and big, padded booths. The decor was decidedly little country kitsch, and Kurt would never be seen at a place like this in New York. But it wasn't in New York, and being seen wasn't even on Kurt's list of priorities right now.

"Can I help you?" the bored-looking hostess asked, hardly even looking at him.

He had to think a moment to remember Blaine's actual last name and not just call him 'Mr. A,' although she probably would have recognized the name, since he seemed to know everyone in town. "Anderson, party of two," he said, and she ushered him over to a table in the middle of the floor where Blaine was already sitting and studying the menu. When Kurt walked over he looked up with a bright smile, and Kurt shivered all the way down to his toes.

Kurt felt uncomfortably exposed, in the middle of the brightly-lit room with the hustle and bustle of a busy restaurant going on behind his back, and it was even worse because he knew what an abnormal reaction that was. Years of celebrity had left him feeling that someone was watching him all the time, but that probably wasn't true at all in his little hometown. He sat down across from Blaine and tried to ignore the prickle in his spine.

It had been years since he'd gone on a date with someone who _mattered_ in the way that Blaine did. There was an unfamiliar flutter of nerves in Kurt's stomach, and his palms were damp with sweat. He watched Blaine through his eyelashes, and tried to make small talk, but the strange feeling only intensified.

He skimmed the menu and picked out something that sounded reasonably healthy, although he knew from experience that there weren't many restaurants in Central Ohio that served organic or locally-sourced ingredients. The waiter arrived, and they ordered, and then Kurt took a deep breath and turned his attention on Blaine.

"Mr. Schue told me that you grew up around here," he said simply, not making it into a question but trying to let Blaine set the pace of the conversation.

"Yeah, I grew up in West Lima, but I went to high school in Westerville," Blaine said with a shrug. "I stayed close to home because I love it here."

Kurt tried to keep the skepticism out of his expression, but he must've failed because Blaine said, "No, really. It might not be New York City, but it's home. I don't think I could ever leave my students here -- they're all such amazing little people." Kurt's heart sank a little at the words, and he realized that some part of his mind had already begun constructing a fantasy future where he could have _both_ Blaine and Broadway.

"Did you go to Westy High?" Kurt asked. He didn't want to admit that the prospect of separation was already affecting him so strongly; it felt stupid to be so attached to a fantasy, something that had never been a real possibility at all.

"No, Dalton Academy." Blaine smiled as he spoke, and for a moment his face seemed lit from within. "It's an all-boys boarding school -- write your own gay joke." He laughed lightly, and Kurt smiled, but found he couldn't speak for a second.

Kurt swallowed hard. "You must have loved it there," he said. He'd made some of the best friends of his life at McKinley, but it was because living through the horrors of high school had forged them into a tight unit. It wasn't something he looked back on fondly.

"Why do you say that?" Blaine asked, his eyebrows drawing together in a curious little frown.

"Your face, when you mentioned it. You looked really happy -- it's adorable."

Blaine blushed, his tanned skin brightening to a dusky rose. Could this ridiculously perfect guy really not realize how he looked? Compared to the glamour boys and gym addicts that populated Kurt's theater circles, it hardly seemed possible.

"I, ah -- thanks. I did love Dalton," he said. "It was pretty different than public school, but in a lot of ways that was a good thing." He didn't elaborate, but Kurt could see a shadow on his face that told the story for him: he hadn't transferred to Dalton for the stellar academics.

"I could see that," Kurt said mildly. He didn't offer any color commentary on his time at McKinley, but Blaine picked up on it anyway.

"McKinley probably wasn't the gay-friendliest place back then, huh?" he asked, and Kurt could've hugged him right then for putting it so mildly.

"Yeah, not really," he said. "But you know, I had the glee club, and my dad -- my whole family, really, and New York to look forward to, so it wasn't so bad." Okay, Kurt had been through a lot of therapy to be able to describe his life at McKinley in such positive terms, but none of that was strictly untrue. "I think it's different now, though," he said. "When I went to see Schuester the other day, I saw this couple in the parking lot..." He swallowed as he thought of them, so secure and unruffled, the very picture of high school sweethearts.

"There's a few same-sex couples at McKinley," Blaine said. "It really is different now." They shared a sad smile, at once happy and sad at the changes that had taken hold. It was wonderful for the kids there now, but their happiness still brought back some of Kurt's old bitterness about the way things used to be.

Shaking his head, Kurt pushed that thought away and grasped at the a scrap of a happier memory. He remembered a Sectionals competition one year, a sweet-voiced boy dancing across the stage and a uniformed backing group swaying behind him. "Wait, Dalton Academy--" he started. What had Puck called them? "The Garblers?"

"Warblers!" Blaine corrected with a gentle laugh.

"I think we competed against you in glee," Kurt said. "We even tried to get Mike Chang to go over and spy on you guys, but he said it would've been cheating and we just watched a bunch of your videos on YouTube instead."

"Really?" Blaine asked, still smiling brightly. "Schuester never told me about that."

"I don't think he knew," Kurt confessed. "He was never the biggest disciplinarian."

"Oh, he's still not," Blaine assured him. "You will not _believe_ some of the things those McKinley kids get up to behind his back--"

\-----

"Would you like to... come over for a drink, maybe?" Blaine asked after dinner, standing in the parking lot beside his car. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and looked down at his shoes, as if he didn't do this very often.

Kurt, who did this so often it was nearly a major hobby, waited until Blaine looked up and met his eyes. "Definitely," he said, voice low and even. If he couldn't have Blaine with him in New York, he'd just have to make the most of their short time together in Lima.

Blaine's cheeks flushed a little, barely visible in the low light of the parking lot, but he didn't turn away again. "Follow me to my house?" he said, more of a question than an instruction, and Kurt nodded.

When they got to Blaine's townhouse, the keys rattled in Blaine's hand as he unlocked the door, and Kurt pretended not to notice.

"Do you want--" Blaine began, closing the door behind him. Kurt didn't even let him finish the sentence before backing him up against the door and kissing him hard. He was determined not to repeat his mistake from the other night, when Blaine hadn't even realized he was interested.

Blaine responded eagerly, wrapping his arms around Kurt's shoulders and holding on as their tongues tangled against each other. This was not the sweetly tentative kiss of the night before; there was none of the surprise and innocence of making out in the front seat of his old car. Instead, there was _intent_ and desire and just a little edge of nerves.

Kurt wound his fingers into Blaine's thick, curly hair and tugged softly, feeling a groan against his lips in response. He smiled a little, smug, and broke the kiss to trace his tongue down the column of Blaine's throat.

Blaine gasped appreciatively when Kurt's teeth scraped over his skin, and so he did it again and repeated the hair-tug, and Blaine's entire body shivered against his. Kurt felt it every place they were pressed together, and an answering thrill ran through him.

He felt Blaine's cock hard through his jeans, and pressed his thigh in between Blaine's legs, spreading them slightly with his knee. He responded eagerly, rocking his hips and thrusting up against Kurt's body.

"God, Kurt," he said, his voice hoarse. "It's been -- this is not going to last very long."

He'd obviously been about to say _It's been a long time_. Kurt could back off if he wanted to, let them both cool down for a minute, and then push for more. He probably would have if he was with someone else, someone who'd met him at the stage door with a bouquet of roses and a sad expression. But Blaine wasn't like the usual groupies and for now, for once, Kurt could be a gentleman and make this about his partner instead of himself.

"That's good," he whispered into Blaine's ear. "C'mon, let go." He traced one hand down Blaine's chest and tweaked his nipple.

Blaine threw his head back and his hands slid down Kurt's back to grab at his ass and hold him tightly in place as they rutted together in a broken rhythm.

Kurt wrapped his fingers around Blaine's cock through his jeans, and leaned back to watch his face. His golden skin was flushed, his lips bitten and red. His pupils were wide and black with lust, and his dark curls were flying around his face. He was wanton and gorgeous and possibly the sexiest thing Kurt had ever seen.

Blaine swore softly under his breath, and Kurt stroked faster, biting his lip as he watched his eyes flutter closed and his pulse pound in his neck.

A moment later Kurt felt Blaine's body stiffen and shake in his arms, his cock throb against his hand, and he let out a loud groan. When he was done, he dropped his head against Kurt's shoulder and laughed softly. "Wow," he said softly, breath puffing warm against Kurt's neck. "I don't usually -- it has been a _really_ long time since I've done that."

"Gotten a hand job?" Kurt asked.

"Come in my pants," Blaine said, his shoulders quivering with laughter and his face looking relaxed and sated. "I feel like a teenager again."

"I didn't really do this much as a teenager," Kurt said. The admission sounded a little sad once it was out, but that was probably true to his life in Lima as well.

Blaine just smiled and took Kurt's hand in his, pulling him into the living room. He kissed Kurt languidly and reached for his belt, undoing the decorative buckle and opening his fly. His fingers were strong and nimble, and when they slipped inside, Kurt could feel rough callouses sliding against his skin as Blaine stroked him, providing a delicious contrast to the soft skin of Blaine's palm.

"Sit," he murmured, the nervousness entirely gone, and Kurt obeyed without a second thought. He didn't even know there was a chair there until he was in it, and then Blaine was bending his head and his lips were slipping down over Kurt's cock, and he completely forgot about the furnishings.

Blaine's technique was a little awkward at first, but his hot mouth and deft tongue more than made up for it, and when he groaned in the back of his throat, Kurt thought he could feel the vibration all the way down to his bones.

He sucked cock like he was hungry for it, like a man wandering in the desert who'd just found water, and he couldn't get enough. Kurt watched the hollow of his cheek as he sucked, the flutter of his lashes against his cheek, the clutch of his fingers against the chair. He dug his fingers into Blaine's dark, rumpled hair and tried not to be swept away.

All too soon, he was arching his back off the chair and crying out as he came, convulsing and forgetting how to breathe for a long moment. Blaine leaned back and swallowed, looking satisfied as he met Kurt's eyes and licked his lips. Kurt sighed and slid off the chair into Blaine's lap, meeting his lips in a long, soft kiss, tasting himself in Blaine's mouth.

"You love that, don't you?" he asked softly, as they pulled apart. "Sucking cock."

"I don't exactly get a chance to do it much," Blaine said, and it wasn't really an admission but the blush in his cheeks said that the answer was _hell, yes_.

"Anytime," Kurt said, with a grin. Blaine laughed in response, and Kurt leaned in and kissed him again, then murmured against his lips, "Next time I want to fuck you, though."

Blaine pulled back and looked away, busying himself with zipping up Kurt's fly and re-fastening his belt. He was still avoiding Kurt's eyes when he asked, "How long are you going to be in Lima?"

Kurt felt the warmth on his skin drop away, and he leaned back and watched Blaine's face. He wasn't expecting that response, but maybe he should've been. He'd been thinking about their short time together, too.

"A couple of weeks," he said honestly. "I have to be back in New York on the thirtieth."

"And what's this?" Blaine asked, motioning between them. "Just a way to pass the time until then?"

Kurt looked at this gorgeous guy, still rumpled and rosy from sex, sitting on the floor beside a crappy IKEA sofa, and his stomach sank. "No!" he said, denying as firmly as he knew how even though it was partially true. "Look, I -- I thought it was, at first. But now--" Frustrated, he stopped. This was a conversation he wasn't used to having. It was basically the opposite of the conversation he was used to having, when he had to explain to some smitten kid that he wasn't looking for a relationship. Kurt wasn't used to being the smitten one.

Blaine laughed softly, bitterly, as if he wasn't happy at being proven right, and it wasn't like Kurt could even deny it. When he first asked Blaine out, he'd been looking for a distraction. But just in the short time since then, things had changed. He didn't know if he could explain that to Blaine, but he had to try.

His words kind of hung in the air for a while, as Blaine bit his lip.

Eventually, Kurt thought _fuck it_ and decided to lay it all on the line. "Can I be honest with you?" he asked. When Blaine nodded, he went on. "I don't -- I don't really know what I'm doing here. I'm going back to New York soon, I'm not much good at romance, and this entire thing makes no sense. But I know it's more than--" he almost said 'more than my usual tricks' and stopped himself at the last moment. "I think this could be something _real_ ," he said. "That is, if you think so, too."

Blaine answered him with a kiss, and his lips were strong and sure, but Kurt could feel his fingers shaking when they clasped hands against the carpet.

\-----

"You're home late," his dad said when Kurt let himself in. The living room was dark, but the lights were on in the kitchen and his dad was sitting there with the sports section in front of him and some paperwork ignored to the side. He'd been waiting up.

"Yeah," Kurt said, unable to keep a small smile off his face.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked. His voice was gruff, and there was concern in his eyes along with fatigue. It'd been a long time since it was just the two of them against the world, but Kurt would always remember his father that way.

"You don't want to hear the details," he said, as he went to the cabinet and got out a mug.

"I don't need the HBO version," Burt said, pulling off his reading glasses and massaging the bridge of his nose. "Give me the Disney story."

Kurt laughed, because there was a reason that they'd always had separate Netflix queues, and this was essentially it. His dad had never managed to talk to him about sex, just left a handful of pamphlets and a box of condoms on his bed after he'd started talking about Lance, but he knew his dad was always there for him.

"What makes you think there's a Disney story?" he asked, his voice light. He turned his back and pulled the milk out of the fridge.

"I was worried you were gonna break that boy's heart," Burt said. One part of Kurt wanted to be offended, but he remembered the way that Blaine's fingers shook and the nervousness of his first kiss, and he knew that his dad was right to be concerned. "But I know you, kid. You look like you're walking on air right now, and I think Mr. A is the reason why."

Kurt took a moment to answer, putting his mug into the microwave and programming the time in, returning the jug of milk to the fridge before he looked back toward his dad.

"First of all," he said, "call him Blaine, not Mr. A -- that's just weird." A broad smile spread across his dad's face. "And yeah," Kurt admitted softly. "If this were a Disney movie, there would probably be choreographed bluebirds or singing frogs or something right now."

The microwave beeped, and Kurt turned to get his mug out.

"Hey, you," his dad said, in a tone of voice that was suddenly so different that Kurt knew he wasn't talking to him anymore. "What are you doing up?"

He clasped his heated mug in both hands and looked back toward the table, where Chloe was now clambering up into the chair Kurt had pulled out for himself. "What are you talking about?" she asked, looking back and forth between them.

"Disney movies," Kurt said. Well, it was partially true.

"The kind with a princess or the kind with talking animals?" she asked seriously. She was wearing pink pajamas with strawberries on them, and her blonde hair was rumpled from sleep.

Kurt widened his eyes and looked at his dad, looking for guidance, but this was the man who'd sat through countless tea parties when Kurt himself was that age. He had it under control.

"The kind with a princess," he said calmly. "You want some warm milk, honey?"

"Okay," Chloe said, swinging her feet against the chair leg. "Uncle Kurt, are you the princess, or is Mr. A?"

Kurt coughed, set down his mug on the counter, and tried not to let warm milk come out his nose. While he was still spluttering and figuring out how to tell his niece to mind her own business or answer the question without a whole lot of inappropriate detail about tops and bottoms, his father surprised him by answering.

"They're both the prince, honey," he said, crouching down next to Chloe's chair with the milk jug in one hand. "Remember how we talked about that?"

"Oh, right," she said, nodding agreeably. "Like Timon and Pumbaa."

Kurt started coughing again, and had to walk away and get a napkin, his eyes watering with the effort of holding back laughter. He might never look at _The Lion King_ the same way again. When he came back, a mug of milk was heating in the microwave, and the chair next to Chloe's had been pulled out invitingly. Kurt retrieved his own mug of milk and sat down.

"If you're both the prince," Chloe asked, once he was sitting down. "Then who saves who at the end?"

Kurt set his mug down on the table and pushed it away, resigning himself to the fact that this conversation was not going to be beverage-compatible. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"You know," she said, looking at Kurt like he was stupid. "Prince Eric killed the sea witch and saved Ariel, and Aladdin saved Jasmine when Jafar trapped her in the hourglass, and the Prince woke Sleeping Beauty up with a kiss."

"What about Belle breaking the Beast out of his curse?" Kurt asked, as his dad sat down across from him. He'd spent so much time watching Disney movies that the characters had basically been his only friends before he'd met Mercedes. There was no way a little kid knew them better than he did. "And Giselle rescued Robert from the dragon at the end of _Enchanted_. In those the prince isn't the one who does the saving."

Chloe tilted her head to one side and a delicate frown appeared on her small face.

"He's got you there," Burt pointed out, hiding a smile behind his own mug of milk.

"Yeah, but--" Chloe said, obviously struggling to articulate her point. "But someone still gets rescued at the end, if it's the prince or not."

"Maybe we can take turns saving each other," Kurt suggested gently.

"I guess," Chloe agreed slowly, but her frown stayed in place. "That doesn't sound like any movie I ever saw."

\-----

The next evening, Kurt was sitting on the sofa watching the Indians game with his dad and Carole when his cell phone rang. One glance at the phone and he picked it up, smiling broadly. "Hi," he said. It was the first time that Blaine had called him, the first time he'd reached out to Kurt instead of the other way around.

"Hi," Blaine said. Kurt settled the phone against his ear and stood beside the kitchen window, facing out into the darkened backyard. His own reflection looked back at him from the glass, pale over the shadows of trees and swing set.

"I just wanted to tell you," Blaine said, his voice deep and soft. "I had a _really_ good time last night." Kurt felt his skin warm at the words, and especially the way that Blaine's inflection suggested he wasn't just talking about dinner.

"So did I," Kurt said softly, hyper-aware of his dad just a few feet away, listening to his half of the conversation whether he would admit it or not. He could think of a dozen things to say, most of them compliments on Blaine's cocksucking abilities, but he bit his tongue.

Suddenly the situation struck him as hilarious and he started to laugh, interrupting whatever Blaine had been about to say. "Remember when you said you felt like a teenager again?" Kurt asked.

"Um, yeah," Blaine said. They shared a moment of silence where Kurt remembered what Blaine had looked like when he said that, flushed and sated and leaning against the door like it was the only thing holding him up.

"You know I'm staying with my dad and stepmom while I'm in town, right?" Kurt asked, trusting Blaine to make the connection.

He did, right away. "So phone sex is out of the question?" he asked, laughing.

"Exactly," Kurt confirmed, although he felt stupidly pleased at the idea that Blaine had suggested it, whether or not he'd been serious. "Also, I had to debrief my six-year-old niece about our date when I got home yesterday." In the glass, Kurt's reflection was smiling broadly, his cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkling. He trained his gaze on the swing set and focused on Blaine's voice instead.

"Does this have anything to do with the questions she asked me during recess about Disney princesses?" Blaine asked, sounding amused.

"I'm afraid so," Kurt said. "Just be glad she didn't share her theories on _The Lion King_ , you'd be scarred for life."

"I managed to distract her with 'Be Our Guest' and dancing housewares," Blaine said, humming a few bars under his breath.

"Oh, well done," Kurt said, leaning his head against the window frame and letting himself enjoy every bit of the ridiculous infatuation he was feeling.

"Thanks. I do hang out with kids for a living, you know." He could just hear the smile in Blaine's voice as he spoke. "So I was thinking... there's a production of _Rent_ in Fort Wayne this weekend, would you want to go? Or maybe that's stupid to you, it's probably not up to your usual standard--"

"Blaine--" Kurt interrupted. "I'd love to. I used to go to shows all the time when I was in school, but now I'm always performing when the other shows are on, so I can't go as often."

"Great, so -- I'll pick you up on Saturday at five?"

"See you then," Kurt said.

After he hung up the phone, he closed his eyes and gave in to the urge to smile like he'd just won the lottery. And when he turned around, he saw his dad and Carole ignoring the game and grinning at him over the top of the sofa. Carole gave him a thumbs-up, and Kurt couldn't even manage to be annoyed at them for listening in.

\-----

Blaine pulled into the driveway in his battered car right on time for their date, knocked on the door and made awkward small talk with Kurt's dad while he finished getting ready.

It was like something out of an old-fashioned television show, and it felt completely bizarre.

Kurt honestly could not remember the last time he'd willingly submitted to a third date without his publicist's encouragement. And yet, with Blaine he found himself looking forward to each meeting more and more.

As Kurt walked downstairs, he saw Blaine's eyes flicker away from Burt's face, then back, and finally Blaine just turned fully toward Kurt and focused on him unabashedly as he entered the room.

"Hi," Kurt said softly, resting one hand on Blaine's shoulder.

"Hi yourself," Blaine said, touching him in the small of the back. It was such a familiar gesture, delivered in such a sweet, unassuming way, that Kurt felt his shoulders relax just a little.

He forced his eyes away from Blaine and looked at his dad, and found him smiling at them with a fond gleam in his eyes. For a moment, Kurt was afraid he might say something embarrassing, but all he said was, "You boys have a good time. Drive safe."

"We will," Blaine promised, shaking his hand.

"Good night, Dad," Kurt said, before all but dragging Blaine out the door.

Blaine slid behind the wheel and waited until Kurt was settled before starting the engine, then steered the car smoothly toward the freeway. "I'm sorry I missed Chloe," he said once they were on their way. "I would've liked to get a 'don't be home late' lecture from a six-year-old."

"As opposed to the 'what are your intentions' lecture you just got from my dad?" Kurt asked dryly.

Blaine glanced away from the road long enough to give Kurt a quizzical look. "No lecture," he said. "He was asking about my car."

"So it's just me, then," Kurt said, laughing. He didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted, actually.

"Your dad defended my virtue?" Blaine asked, smiling.

What he'd actually said was _I was afraid you were gonna break that boy's heart_ , but driving on the highway with the setting sun giving a golden glow to Blaine's skin and shining on his dark hair, Kurt didn't want to repeat it. "Something like that," he said instead.

The radio jangled softly in the background, and the tires hummed against the pavement, and Kurt watched Blaine's hands on the steering wheel as he drove. The silence wrapped around them both, cushioning them and nurturing the moment until it became something warm and intimate.

"I never really did this in high school," Blaine said, apropos of nothing.

"Neither did I," Kurt said, thinking of how unfamiliar and strange it had felt to act out that little tableau with Blaine and his father at the house, even though he'd seen Finn go through it with Rachel and Quinn and Anna and dozens of other girls over the years. "I didn't really date at all until I got to college."

"My first boyfriend was..." Blaine began, and Kurt turned to face him. "Let's just say it didn't work out."

"No?" Kurt asked. "What happened? Wait, let me guess -- was he the son of a rival gang? Did he get called away to war? Framed for murder?"

"You've been spending too much time on Broadway," Blaine said, resting one hand on Kurt's knee. "He was older -- I was seventeen and he was a freshman in college, and I was so impressed with that, I didn't even think about the way he never wanted to be seen with me in public, or how I never met his family or his friends."

"He wasn't out," Kurt guessed. He covered Blaine's hand with his own, let the motion of the highway soothe away the tension that appeared at the corner of Blaine's mouth.

"Not really," Blaine confirmed. "He wasn't experimenting, but he didn't want anyone to know, either."

Kurt wondered if this was Blaine's way of asking him how the evening at the theater was going to go, if Kurt was willing to be gay in public. Well, there were no worries on that score. At least in Fort Wayne, Indiana, they had a chance to avoid the paparazzi, but Page Six usually managed to get at least a fuzzy cell phone picture of Kurt once a week or so, and it had been ten days since his last appearance. He was probably due for a little media attention.

He didn't say any of that to Blaine, though. "My first boyfriend was kind of different," Kurt told him. "We called each other boyfriends, but 'friends with benefits' was probably closer to the truth."

"In college?" Blaine asked.

"No, this was in high school. He was a good guy, but we didn't have a lot in common besides being gay and singing." Kurt shrugged. "We're still friends on Facebook."

"If things had been different," Blaine said, turning his hand palm-up and clasping it around Kurt's fingers, "We might've met in high school. You think we would've dated?"

"I don't know," Kurt admitted. "I probably would have been too scared to ever make a move." He'd never been all that confident in high school; it had taken stardom and the freedom of the city to give him his confidence.

"Guess it would've been up to me, then." Blaine squeezed Kurt's hand, and rubbed his thumb over the back.

Kurt thought about what it would've been like to know a boy like Blaine in high school: a boy who would meet his family and pick him up at the door, who would go out for cozy coffee dates and drive an hour to see a musical with him. It would have made life at McKinley a lot more bearable, that much was certain.

A familiar tinkle echoed out of the radio, and Blaine slipped his hand from Kurt's to reach for the volume knob. "I love this song," he said.

Kurt opened his mouth to comment on Katy Perry's questionable vocal abilities, but before he could say anything, Blaine began to sing along.

" _Before you met me, I was all right,_ " he sang, " _But things were kind of heavy, you brought me to life. Now every February, you'll be my Valentine._ "

Blaine's voice as he sang was sweet and pure, floating over the synth-pop beat like a bird in flight. Kurt wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, he wanted to hold up a cigarette lighter and sway to the beat. Instead he just clasped his hands across his knee and watched Blaine as he sang.

" _You make me feel like I'm living a teenage dream, the way you turn me on._ " It was an old song, one that had been all over the radio during high school. Kurt had heard it a thousand times, maybe more, but it never sounded like this.

" _Now baby I believe this is real, so take a chance and don't ever look back, don't ever look back._ "

Kurt had never really liked the song back then, but hearing it now in Blaine's voice, as the car sped westward along the two-lane highway, it seemed to sum up everything that had happened over the last week. Suddenly, Katy Perry was some kind of all-knowing voice of truth. Kurt rolled his eyes at himself. This was all becoming just a little _too_ corny.

Then Blaine put his hand on Kurt's knee again, slid it halfway up his thigh, and squeezed as he sang: " _Let's go all the way tonight. No regrets, just love._ "

And Kurt stopped being able to breathe for a second.

\-----

"I wish you could stay longer," Blaine said later, his body stretched across the dark blue sheets on his bed, sweat still cooling on his chest.

Kurt pressed a kiss to his shoulder. "I know," he said. It felt like something was growing between them, something still new and fragile, and time together would nourish it. A part of him was dreading the day he had to leave Blaine behind and abandon this -- this thing that he was not yet ready to name.

He stood up and padded into the bathroom, removed the condom and tied it off in a knot, then washed his hands and face before wetting a washcloth and bringing it back to Blaine in the bed.

The part of him that didn't want to leave Blaine behind was just one part, though. Leaving Blaine meant returning to New York, to the crowds and the rush and the city that never slept. It meant Broadway and the theater and the role he'd dreamed of. He could never give that up.

He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his fingers down Blaine's arm from shoulder to elbow. "I have to go, though," he said. "This show... it's the opportunity I've been hoping for my entire life."

Blaine looked up at him through his long, dark eyelashes and gave him a sleepy smile, and for a moment Kurt forgot what he'd been talking about entirely. "What show?" he asked, just as Kurt was leaning in for a kiss.

He sat back and blinked. "I haven't told you?"

Blaine opened his eyes and sat up slowly, never taking his eyes off Kurt. When they were both sitting on the bed, facing each other, he said softly, "No."

"It's _Cabaret_ , Blaine. You can't tell anyone, it hasn't been announced yet, but it's an enormous revival and the Master of Ceremonies is the--"

"--The opportunity of a lifetime," Blaine finished for him, eyes wide. "Kurt, you have to go."

If Blaine had been resentful or petty about the part, Kurt thought, it might have been easier to leave him behind, to write him off, to ignore the way he was becoming more and more important in Kurt's life.

Despite all his dreams and plans and ambitions, his voice sounded a little hollow when he said, "I know."

\-----

"Oh," Mr. Schuester said when Kurt and Blaine arrived together in the choir room, talking and laughing. "You two've already met, then."

He actually sounded disappointed at having his matchmaking scheme ruined, and Kurt felt a little bad about deceiving him.

"So, let's get to the competition, then," Schue said, clapping his hands. He handed Kurt and Blaine each a printed sheet of paper. On the page was a list of names, with blank lines next to each for specific factors: _voice quality, expressivity & diction, musicality, audience impact._ Each element had a percentage of the total score listed next to it.

Kurt raised one eyebrow. "Impressive."

"I'm afraid I can't take credit," Schue said nodding toward Blaine.

"Thanks," Blaine said at the same time, nudging him with his elbow.

Kurt wondered briefly whether he would've gotten more solos with a clear-cut judging scale like this one in place, and the flare of bitterness surprised him. "Seriously, this is great."

"Had to put that music education major to use somehow," Blaine said, shrugging off the compliment. "So what's the category this time?"

"In honor of Kurt, it's 'Broadway with a twist,'" Schue said, looking pleased with himself. Kurt, remembering some of his more questionable assignments back when he was in school, held back a wince. "I've asked the kids to take a Broadway song and perform it differently -- change the gender of the performer, turn an individual song into a duet, or a duet into a solo."

Kurt felt pleased despite himself. He'd done all of those things during performances in glee, although usually not when assigned. It was almost as if Schue had actually learned a few things over the years.

Mr. Schuester led them into the auditorium, where a gleaming brass sign over the doors still read _April Rhodes Civic Pavilion_ , and down the steps to a middle row of seats. As Kurt settled into his seat, he let his fingers brush against Blaine's knee and got a quick squeeze of the hand in return.

After a couple of minutes, the kids started filing into the auditorium in twos and threes, carrying schoolbags and stacks of books, talking and laughing. Once they had all arrived -- Kurt counted sixteen of them -- Schue called the group to order, introduced Kurt and Blaine, and asked who wanted to go first.

A curvy redhead raised her hand, and Schue nodded to her. "Okay, Morgan, let's see what you have for us." She climbed onto the stage, and disappeared into the wings for a moment. When she came out, she was carrying an acoustic guitar and a tall stool. Sitting down in the center of the stage, she strummed a couple of chords before launching into a sweet Joni Mitchell-esque version of "One Song Glory."

Kurt carefully made notes on the sheet that Schuester had provided, giving Morgan good scores but not outstanding ones. He glanced over at Blaine's sheet and found that he'd been a little more generous with the numbers, and also scribbled some advice in the margins.

Two guys came out onstage next, and sang "Luck Be a Lady Tonight." It was a passable version, although turning it into a duet didn't add much to the song, and Kurt noted as much next to the scores he gave.

He recognized Amy, the barista from the Lima Bean, who sang Kurt's part from the theme to _Amazing!_ When she was done, one of the other students yelled "Kiss ass!" at her, but she just flipped him off and shouted back, "You're just sorry you didn't think of it first!"

A boy and girl pair came onstage and sang a flirty, funny duet on "I'm Always True to You in My Fashion" that had the entire rest of the class on their feet applauding. Their voices were strong and clear, and their chemistry onstage was undeniable. Kurt gave them his highest marks yet.

The students were a mix of truly talented singers and enthusiastic beginners, and Kurt found himself smiling and laughing along as a group of girls sang "Greased Lightning."

When the last student was done, Schue stood up and addressed the group again. "Great job, guys! You can stop by my office anytime if you want to see your scores, and we'll announce the winners in class tomorrow. But first, I thought maybe we could convince our guest of honor to show us all how it's done? Kurt, what d'you say?"

"No warning, huh?" he muttered to Blaine, but stood and climbed the stairs to the stage anyway.

Brad was sitting behind the piano near the back of the stage, looking almost exactly the same as he always had. Kurt didn't even have to ask, Brad just pulled out a book of music and set it open on the stand, and Kurt walked to the front of the stage as the piano began to play.

 _"Something has changed within me,"_ he sang. _"Something is not the same..."_

The auditorium looked just like it did in his memory, the music sounded the same in his ears, but the words were true. Kurt was not the same inexperienced boy he had been when he sung here for the first time. He had control he'd never had now, training and experience with the best in the business, and his voice echoed off the rafters and carried back to him strong and pure.

He turned toward the students gathered in the front few rows and sang to them, making eye contact with each one in turn. If there was one thing he could tell his younger self, it would surely have been this.

 _"Some things I cannot change, but till I try, I'll never know."_

Mr. Schuester was standing behind the students, one hand resting on the stair rail. He was frozen in place, his eyes shining with pride as he watched Kurt onstage.

And near the front, Blaine was sitting where Kurt had left him, his scorecard in his lap and eyes trained on the stage. Too late, Kurt realized that this was the first time he'd sung to Blaine. Five nights a week, he sang to a full house of hundreds, but somehow this felt more significant.

 _"It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and leap."_

He thought of the way Blaine had looked, golden skin bare across the dark sheets, when he'd said 'I wish you could stay,' and in that moment, Kurt knew what he had to do. His heart beat faster, he had to struggle for his next breath, but he felt absolutely certain of one thing: when he went back to New York, he wanted Blaine with him.

 _"Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity,"_ he sang, meeting Blaine's eyes and pouring every ounce of emotion he'd collected over the last ten days into the words. In the original, the final line was a kiss-off, a repudiation, but Kurt altered his voice and thought of Blaine and willed it to be a statement of faith. _"--and you won't bring me down."_

\-----

"That -- your song, that was amazing," Blaine said, as they walked through the auditorium and towards the exit, surrounded by the students of the glee club.

"Thanks," Kurt said. He could still feel his heart racing in his chest, the newfound certainty racing through his veins. He reached out and grabbed Blaine by the elbow. "Wait a minute?" he asked.

They held back as the students filed out in front of them. Once the last one was gone, the door clanged shut behind them with a loud retort, and Kurt took a deep breath. There was no other way to get at this than to just go for it honestly and directly.

He looked at Blaine, met his eyes in the dim light of the auditorium. "Come home with me," he said. "To New York."

"Kurt--" Blaine started to say something, then stopped, and Kurt's heart dropped until it bumped into his spine and he thought he might throw up. "I can't."

"You _can_ ," Kurt said. "I have a great apartment, we could live together there, the city is so amazing, you have no idea--"

Blaine opened his mouth to speak, and Kurt shut up right away. The last thing he wanted to do was to talk over Blaine while he was agreeing to the most nerve-wracking speech of Kurt's entire life, which was really saying something because he'd been in the theater for nearly a decade.

"Let me be really clear about something," he said. "I really, really care about you. I don't want to mess this up." Kurt felt frozen in place, like he couldn't speak or swallow or move to touch Blaine. All he wanted to say was, _then come with me_ , and he couldn't even get it out. "But you know that I can't leave Lima right now. I have commitments here. My kids, my job, my life is here. This is my home."

Kurt bit his lip and watched his face closely as he talked. Blaine's eyes were wide with sincerity, and his gaze never left Kurt's face. After he was done speaking, they stood together in silence as Kurt thought through his words again.

He should've known that Blaine wouldn't leave his students at the drop of a hat, in the middle of the school year, to move in with a guy he'd only just met. But 'I can't' didn't mean 'no.' There was an important qualifier buried in that speech somewhere, that turned the whole thing from an outright rejection into... something decidedly else.

His heart rose back into place again, and finally, he spoke. "You can't leave Lima _now_?" he asked.

"Kurt..." Blaine said, looking toward the stage, but he sounded fond.

"I can wait," Kurt hurried to say, before Blaine said anything else. "And when you're ready, there'll be a place for you in New York."

He honestly thought that Blaine was going to argue again, but instead he leaned close and pressed a kiss to Kurt's lips. His lips were warm and soft, gentle; it didn't _feel_ like a goodbye kiss, Kurt thought.

"Deal," Blaine said softly. "But it could take a while, you know."

\-----

When his plane lifted off from the Columbus airport, Kurt looked out the window and watched Ohio's checkerboard terrain pull away into the distance. It had only been two short weeks since he'd arrived and watched this movie in reverse, but it had seemed totally different then.

Two weeks ago, he'd been expecting a dull, relaxing trip to his hometown. He'd been eager to get to Lima, just so he could leave again, could rush back to the city.

And now? Now, only fourteen days later, Kurt felt as though his entire life were different. He was no longer eager to return to New York; he felt like he was being dragged away from the one person who mattered most. He could still taste Blaine's kisses in his mouth and feel his arms wrapped around his shoulders.

In the airport, they'd stood holding each other close as harried passengers streamed past, wrapped in an embrace that had been building for two full weeks. "I'll see you soon," Blaine whispered into his ear.

"I'll be waiting," Kurt said back, and when he pulled away there were tears in Blaine's eyes.

As the plane lifted away from Ohio, Kurt reached into his bag and pulled out his tablet, and his fingers closed on a scrap of paper tucked into the case. It was a paper napkin, folded in half, with neat writing on it: a name and a phone number. He could barely remember the flight attendant who'd given it to him on the flight out; it seemed so long ago that it was almost like something that had happened to someone else.

Kurt wadded up the napkin and dropped it into his half-empty cup of coffee, then turned his eyes back toward the window. If he looked carefully, he could see a patch of green through the clouds.

\-----

Two months later, Kurt woke up in a bed that felt too large. He could look out the window and see half of Manhattan, but he felt alone. He showered and picked out his clothes carefully, without looking at the empty shelves in his closet or the new nightstand he'd bought or the extra space he'd cleared out for Blaine's things in the bathroom. Those places had been ready for weeks, and he still had no idea when they'd be filled. He was starting to wonder if they ever would.

He hadn't spoken to Blaine in nearly a week. Every time his phone rang, it was his manager or publicist or the director, but never Blaine. Oh, he called, but it was in the evenings, when every available hour was filled with rehearsals, singing and dancing and running lines and working out the blocking for the biggest revival to hit Broadway in decades. He'd snatch a minute here and there, listen to Blaine's messages and respond with a quick text back, but they never managed to talk. He needed his boyfriend more than ever now, but there hadn't been a moment when they'd both been awake and free in days

Kurt buttoned up his shirt and knotted his tie carefully, pulling it straight and smoothing it down his chest, pushing away his nerves as he did so. He stood tall and threw back his shoulders, watching himself in the mirror as he took a deep breath.

It was the first night of previews, their first performance in front of a real audience and the critics who could make his career with one review. This was why he'd come back to New York, why he'd left Blaine in Ohio and made all those promises that he was trying so hard to keep.

"You're Kurt Hummel," he told his reflection, lifting his chin in that determined way that made the tabloids call him a diva. "You can do this. You will kill that show, and make them all stand up and take notice."

The show needed to be a success. It _had_ to be great, and his performance had to be fantastic.

He'd given up something pretty wonderful for this, after all.

\-----

When the curtain dropped slowly to the stage, and the crowd's applause was still thundering in his ears, Kurt was drenched in sweat, his costume was sticking to his skin and the greasepaint was practically dripping off his face, doing God-knew-what to his pores. His heart was thudding in his chest and his legs were shaking, and his costars were hugging him or giving him jealous glares and saying things like "you stole the show" and "nobody's going to mention Sally Bowles, this was all about you."

Kurt drew a shaky breath. The show had been flawless. _Cabaret_ would be a huge hit, and he'd done everything right.

But would that be enough to keep him warm at night?

He washed off the greasepaint and combed his hair mechanically, dressed himself in his own clothes and smoothed his tie across his chest again. As he left his dressing room, there were people there in the hallway, techs and understudies and musicians from the orchestra, and he shook their hands and gave them smiles that he didn't feel.

The show had been a huge success, he reminded himself. This was what he wanted. He repeated it again. _This was what you wanted._

One of the dancers who played a cabaret boy smiled hopefully at him in the hallway, and Kurt met his eyes briefly before looking away. It had been two months since he'd been with anyone, and heated phone calls and his own hand only went so far. He shook his head, bit his lip, and kept going.

Ahead of him was the stage door, where fans would be waiting. Some of them would be happy to ease his loneliness. He could take three of them home if he wanted to, and he had before. But tonight that wasn't what he wanted.

He only had to get through the crowd, and resist the friendly fans to get home alone, and then he could call Blaine. There were thirty-six hours until the next show -- maybe that was enough time to charter a plane to Lima and back?

He sighed, and pushed open the door.

A small crowd of fans had lingered in the sultry city heat while he cleaned himself up, and they were waiting in the narrow alley with their playbills and programs clutched in their hands. Kurt barely looked at them, glancing over their heads to where a black towncar sat waiting at the end of the alley. All he had to do was sign a few autographs and then he could go home to his empty apartment. That wasn't really what he wanted either, but he told himself it would be enough.

Tearing his eyes away from his getaway car, he looked at the fans gathered before him.

And there, in the front of the crowd, was Blaine. His eyes were shining with pride and happiness, he held a big bouquet of yellow roses in one hand, and a broad smile stretched across his face. He looked like Prince Charming.

The next moment, Blaine was in his arms and against his lips and nothing else mattered. Kurt's tension and worry and emptiness were swept away by the caress of Blaine's touch and the intensity of his kiss.

He heard the cameras snapping around him and saw flashbulbs popping against his eyelids. Blaine's body was warm and solid and _real_ against his chest and the roses in his hands pressed against Kurt's back.

Eventually he pulled back from the kiss enough to whisper in Blaine's ear. "How long?" he asked. "How long can you stay?"

"As long as you want me," Blaine said right away, nearly cutting off Kurt's question, his breath hot against Kurt's neck.

"You sure?" Kurt asked, remembering the way Blaine had said _Lima is my home._ He wanted Blaine with him in New York so much that it was difficult to breathe sometimes, but it had to be real. For both of them.

"School's out for the summer," Blaine said softly. "My contract's over, and it turns out they have schools in New York, too. I'm here for good, Kurt." For the first time since the curtain fell, Kurt let himself feel like the night was a success, and elation flooded his senses.

"Kurt! Kurt! Mr. Hummel!" the reporters shouted, as the fans clustered around and whispered excitedly. "Is this someone special? What did you think of the show? Can you tell us-- What was it-- Who is--" Their voices overlapped and drowned each other out in their excitement, as he pulled away from Blaine to look at them.

Kurt stood in the dirty alley, his body aching and his ears ringing from the performance. The city air pressed close around, and his own face looked out at him a hundred times where already-tattered posters were glued to the brick walls of the building opposite. Cameras flashed in his eyes and the reporters and the fans all shouted questions and demands at him.

Blaine's hand squeezed his, and Kurt turned to look at him. "Are you ready for this?" he asked in a low voice. It was a far cry from the quiet life of an Ohio schoolteacher.

In response, Blaine just handed him the bouquet of roses, only a little battered from their embrace.

Together, they turned to face the crowd.


End file.
